Danger looms over delay in restructuring, say scholars

A former Vice Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Prof. Femi Mimiko, yesterday, blamed the British colonial masters as the originator of Nigeria’s unworkable federalism.

The university don, who is a political scientist, said this at a lecture he delivered at the Bowen University in Iwo during the first mock confab on nation-building with the theme: “Stabilising the Nigerian State for the Public Good.”

Mimiko said the British deliberately designed the country in favour of the North by making the region bigger than South-West and South-East.

He said the country had been using unitary constitutions to run a supposed federal state.Others, who spoke at the event, include Vice Chancellor of university, Prof. Joshua Ogunwole, a delegate to the 2014 conference, Prof. Eddy Eragbeh and a lecturer at the College of Law, Prof. Mosunmola Imasogie.

Mimiko stressed the need for Nigeria to be urgently restructured to true and workable federalism before it would be too late to salvage the situation, saying that the country could become a failed state.

Mimiko, who was a delegate to the 2014 National Conference, said the solutions to remedy the country’s situation were contained in the report of the conference and also in the recommendations of the Governor Nasir el-Rufai-led All Progressives Congress (APC) Committee on True Federalism.

Ogunwole said the university started the mock conference to stimulate the interest of students on issues confronting the country and how to address them.

He added that by getting the youths to be intellectually engaged in fashioning out solutions to the problems, the future would be bright.

Eragbeh said that the country put so many resources into organising the conference, saying that adopting the recommendations would address most of the problems confronting the nation.

In the same vein, Imasogie said time was fast running out for the country and urge that steps must be taken to prevent it from collapsing.